


The Sky Howls

by HSavinien



Series: The Old Guard's Montana Adventure [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Bad Weather, Introspection, M/M, POV Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Post-Canon, Thunder and Lightning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:01:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26163076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HSavinien/pseuds/HSavinien
Summary: Joe and Nicky had to take shelter when a storm blew in.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: The Old Guard's Montana Adventure [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1916143
Comments: 8
Kudos: 112





	The Sky Howls

Joe startles awake from his half-doze as the boom of thunder shudders the walls, just as the last one and the one before had, the arm around Nicky's waist sliding up reflexively to cover his heart. 

"Calm, love." Nicky hums, stroking down his arm. The warmth of his palm slows Joe's breath back to its usual rhythm. 

"Everything well?" Joe manages, tongue tripping as it wakes until he switches into Italian. "Any word from Andy or Nile?"

"Nothing new, just 'wait for a change'," Nicky says tiredly. "The intervals between the thunder are getting longer, at least."

Joe props himself up, leaning over to see the darkness like a bruise under Nicky's eye. "Can you rest if I watch?"

The tension loosens from the lines around Nicky's mouth, just a little. "Perhaps," he says. "You are my safe haven, after all."

Joe's heart blooms as warm as summer, as warm as every time Nicky waxes poetic, and he presses his lips to the corner of Nicky's jaw. "Gun?"

Nicky hands him the one from under the pillow - their jackets, folded together to give some padding on the uneven wooden floor. Joe slides himself up, propping his back against the box standing duty as a headboard tonight, then tucks Nicky's head close to his hip. He rubs his gritty eyes and checks the flip-phone that’s their only connection to Andy and Nile right now. No messages, half battery left. 

He laces his fingers into Nicky’s hair, carding through it. Nicky makes a tired, contented noise and relaxes a little, and it leaches some of the tension from Joe’s shoulders as well.

The rain drums on the metal roof above them, coming in louder waves as the wind gusts pitch it against their shelter. It’s only a little rancher’s shed tucked into the side of the mountain and they were lucky to find it before the storm picked up. The Castle Reef mountain looms high behind them, but provides little protection from the massive rainclouds that blew in over the plain. Being able to see it coming still didn’t give the two of them time to do more than reach the building and break in. One corner of the floor is wet, where the rainwater runs in a stream down the gully beside the building and is slowly eating the wooden foundation away. The box Joe’s leaning on is full of fencing wire and metal staples, and an aging veterinary kit molders on a shelf, but the shed is otherwise empty. 

It isn’t worth trying to move in the storm. The white supremacist homegrown terrorists they’re hunting are supposed to be camped somewhere up past the trailhead to the west of them. The plan was for Andy and Nile to approach from the south on ATVs while Joe and Nicky staked out the trail, but nobody’s traveling while the sky howls this much rage. 

Joe almost wishes he were out in the storm, if he had dry clothing and a warm shower to return to afterward. The power of it, the wildness of it reminds him of returning to life with a gasp and a rush of blood to his heart and head. The lightning electrifying the sky as they ran for shelter made him shudder with the sort of fear that comes straight from the amygdala, but also with wonder at the immensity of it. 

Yusuf al-Kaysani’s mother had loved storms too. He remembers her praying during them, watching the light illuminate their home in stark white and silvering her face and its giddy smile. He cannot remember her prayer exactly, only the rough idea of it, so he murmurs, 

اللّهُـمَّ إِنَّـي أَسْـأَلُـكَ خَيْـرَها، وَخَيْـرَ ما فيهـا، وَخَيْـرَ ما اُرْسِلَـتْ بِه، وَأَعـوذُ بِك مِنْ شَـرِّها، وَشَـرِّ ما فيهـا، وَشَـرِّ ما اُرْسِلَـتْ بِه

and hopes he has come close.

Nicky shifts, and Joe gentles him.

He has never been struck by lightning. Andy recommends against it; she says it’s like all your muscles have turned to stone and fire and she felt like her brain had to unscramble itself afterward. Joe wonders sometimes if it would be worth it, to feel something so powerful. 

Thunder booms again, echoing inside his chest, but it feels more distant. The walls don’t shudder with it quite as much. The rain whooshes against the roof all the same, and he settles in, eyes on the door, to let the rest of the storm wash over them.

**Author's Note:**

> O Allah, I ask You for (the storm’s) goodness, the good within it, and the good it was sent with, and I take refuge with You from its evil, the evil within it, and from the evil it was sent with. (https://www.icna.org/duas-to-remember-during-storms/)


End file.
